DAMNING EVIDENCE

Leaked Recording Suggests Iran Immediately Knew a Missile Hit Ukrainian Airlines Jet

Ukrainian TV aired a recording that appears to show Iranian officials knew about the missile strike as it happened.

A leaked recording appears to show that Iranian officials immediately knew a missile downed a Ukrainian jetliner near Tehran last month, killing all 176 people aboard, days before Iran’s government admitted to the strike. A Ukrainian TV network aired the recording Sunday night, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky later confirmed its authenticity. It appears to contain an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot. According to AP, the pilot reported “a series of lights” to the controller, then said: “It is the light of missile.” Iran’s civilian government insisted for days after the Jan. 8 disaster that it wasn’t a missile that brought down the plane. Iranian officials would have had access to the air-traffic control recordings and Zelensky said Monday “the recording, indeed, shows that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane was shot down by a missile, they were aware of this at the moment of the shooting.”